The invention relates to apparatus for drying the interior volume of footwear, particularly athletic foot wear such as ski boots, which in the course of a day's use can accumulate moisture, whether from body sweat or from melted snow.
The prior art includes a variety of devices for drying the interior of one or more pairs of ski boots or other foot wear. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,136,464 (Hay), plural rigid upstanding tubes communicate with a plenum chamber which constitutes the base of the device. Each of the tubes has a transversely bent upper end, and an actuating rod is externally exposed above the bend, so that upon placement of an inverted boot over the end of one of the tubes, the weight of the boot actuates the rod, thereby clearing plural openings in the tube for directing warm air from the plenum to the interior of the boot. Heat may be supplied to the plenum by placing the same over a floor register.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,145,602 (Lee) discloses a coin-operated boot-drying/glove-drying apparatus wherein a hot-air blower in a wall-mountable chamber directs drying air to boots or gloves hanging from guide rails, such that an individual horizontal blast of drying air is delivered to each hanging article to be dried.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,171,580 (Vabrinskas) discloses the combination of a housing which completes an airflow passage in the configuration of an inverted U-shape, wherein separate vertical tubes extend into the individual boots of a given pair, and the housing contains a motorized fan to draw inlet air through one tube and to expel the same air via the other tube. The device as a whole hangs from a wall hook, clothes-hanging rod, or the like.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,200,993 (Blanc et al.) discloses floor-mounted apparatus comprising an upstanding tubular column, closed at its base and equipped with a motorized hot-air blower at its upper end. A vertically distributed array of upwardly slanted tubular arms branch from openings in the column and are sized and spaced to provide individual support of ski boots, such that the tilt of each boot allows water drainage to a trough. The troughs are designed to funnel all water to a common means of water accumulation and disposal.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,727,656 (Jannach et al.) discloses an upstanding device wherein a serpentine pipe is the conduit for a flow of warm air. The serpentine course defines a vertically distributed array of upwardly slanted U-bent arms, which are sized and spaced to accommodate individual boots to be dried, via ports in and/or near the bend of each U-shape.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,768,293 (Kaffka) discloses a self-contained unit-handling device for application to a single boot, comprising a motorized fan adapted for support by the upper rim of the boot, and discharging a flow of air via a tube which extends within the boot and which discharges, via an ell, in the toe direction. Air is allowed to exhaust vertically upward between the tube and the inner wall of the boot and via openings in the means of support at the rim of the boot.
All of these prior art devices are cumbersome, requiring a motorized hot-air blower as part of the involved structure. And none of these devices can be truly compact and portable, although the telescoping-tube configuration of Kaffka admittedly provides a degree of collapsability when not in use.